Interoception Flashcards
What is interoception?
The sense of the internal state of the body.
Foundation of sense of the physical self.
What does Interoception tell us?
- The feelings we receive from the body
- Homeostasis
- Informs us of our physical state
What is the restrictive definition of interoception?
Purely visceral - info concerning the functional state of the internal organs
What is the inclusive definition of interoception?
General homeostatic sensory capacity - info concerning the broader physiological state and motivational needs of the body
What is the goal of homeostasis?
To achieve physical equilibrium
What pathway do intereoceptive signals follow?
Neural anatomical pathway
What is the anatomical pathway?
Similar categories of afferent nerves.
What kind of pathway is the neural anatomical pathway?
Ascending.
Consisting of afferent neurons (nerve fibers carrying info towards the brain)
What are afferent neurons?
Carrying signals from the body to the brain
How does myelination effect the neurons in the anatomical pathway?
- Increases efficiency of electrical transmission (signals travel faster)
What information do myelinated nerves carry?
Nociceptors (pain)
What information do unmyelinated nerves carry?
Affective touch (CT afferents)
Where do interoceptive signals travel in the spinal cord?
- Into the dorsal horn of the spinal cord
- The cells in the dorsal horn are divided into physiologically distinct layers (laminae)
- Projects contralaterally to the lateral spinothalamic tract
Where do interoceptive signals travel in the brain?
- Lamina 1 projects to brain stem
- Then to the thalamus, hypothalamus and amygdala
- Finally to the cortex (specifically insula and anterior cingulate)
How do afferent projections maintain homeostasis?
- Afferent projections from the dorsal horn provide the somato-automatic reflexes crucial for maintaining homeostasis
- Continuous feedbackk
What is another name for the insula cortex?
The interospective cortex
Where is the insula cortex?
Hidden in the centre of the brain
How is interoception linked to emotions?
- There’s an intrinsic link between the physiological state of the body and emotion
- Emotions can be felt in the body
What is alexithymia?
People have no words for their emotions - linked to interoception deficits.
Explain our ‘gut feeling’ using interoception.
- The interconnection between the gut and the brain is deeply rooted in our language
- Neural network communicates with the brain about gastrointestinal homeostasis.
- Bidirectional - emotions can influence digestive system too
Where did Aristotle believe the self was?
In the heart
Where is the self?
The strongest sensations we get in our bodies is usually related to the heart.
But we live in a very thought-led society so the self could also be in the head/brain.
How can interoception affect behaviour?
- Emotional behaviours evolved to produce goal-directed actions that fulfil homeostatic needs of the body
- How you feel can be moderated by physiological state of the body
- How you feel can influence your behaviour
How do physiological motivations effect our behaviour?
- Cognition takes place within the context of the body that needs to stay alive and be healthy
- Brains evolved to regulate bodies within a social context
Give an example of how phsyiological motivations effect our behaviour?
Piece of cake - at first the piece of cake looks yummy but once you’ve eaten it, your body tells you that you’re full and so you don’t eat anymore before you are sick.
Explain the link between interoception and behaviour.
- Affective experience influenced by the current body state
- Drives behaviour to achieve homeostasis
What paradigm did Garfinkel et al 2014 study?
Attentional Blink (AB) Paradigm
What happens in the Attentional Blink Paradigm?
Identification of an initial target during a rapid serial visual presentation of stimuli which impairs the ability to detect the second target.
What did Garfinel et al 2014 measure against the rapid serial visual presentation?
Different phases of the heartbeat - Systole and Diastole states
What is systole?
When the heart contracts
What is diastole?
When the heart relaxes
What are Baroreceptors?
Thin, myelinated neurons that go into the spinal cord to convey info from the heart to lead the brain to cause top-down regulatory signals to come back to that homeostatic state of equilibrium
What did Garfinkel et al 2014 do in the second half of their experiment?
Target 1 was always a house and Target 2 was a face (disgust, fear, sad, happy, or neutral).
Following the AB task, the recognition od T1 and T2 stimuli was examined
What did Garfinkel et al 2014 find?
- Timing of stimuli facilitated detection of T2 for fear faces only.
- Systole presentation led to greater proportion of fear faces being detected.
What did Garfinkel et al 2014 do in their second experiment?
- MRI experiment
- Neutral of fear faces presented briefly
- Presented in either diastole or systole
- Emotion intensity ratings
What did Garfinkel et al 2014 find in their second experiment?
- Timing of the stimuli related to intensity judgments
- Systole stimuli led to greater intensity for fear faces
0 Diastole stimuli trend for greater intensity for neutral faces
How did Garfinkel et al 2014’s experiment link to anxiety?
They found that the interaction between the cardiac cycle and the emotion intensity seemed to be related to their state level of anxiety.
What did MRI scans show in Garfinkel et al 2014’s second experiment?
- Cardiac presentation i slinked to anterior insular activity
- Amygdala activity is sensitive to phases of the cardiac cycle and predicted shifts in emotion
How can Garfinkel et al 2014’s results be translated in the real world?
- Percdeption of threat is dependent on the level of physiological arousal
- In systole, the heart is working the hardest
- Greater arousal (more and stronger heartbeats) would mean more time in systole compared to diastole
What did Azevedo et al 2017 study?
- Complex human behaviours
- Effect of cardiac cycle on racial stereotyping
- Comparing stimulus presentation in systole and diastole
What was the method in Azevedo et al 2017?
- Identify targets (tool or weapon)
- Primed by black or white male faces
- presented at systole or diastole
- PP was asked to identify whether the second stimulus was a weapon or tool
What did Azevedo et al 2017 find?
- More correctly identifying weapons when primed with a black face is systole
- More correctly identifying tools when primed with a white face in systole
- Basically systole exacerbated racially steretyped responses
What was Azevedo et al 2017’s second study?
First Person Shooter Task
What was the method of Azevedo et al 2017’s second study?
- PPs were police
- Had to decide whether or not to shoot the criminal
- Confederated were either armed or unarmed and either black or white
What did Azevedo et al 2017 find in their second study?
- PPs chose to shoot unarmed black men more often than unarmed white men
- Significant effect is again only found during systole and in the unarmed condition
- Important on how the physiological state of the body effects both emotions and thus our behaviour
What is Interoceptive Accuracy?
How accurate an individual is at detecting and interpreting interoceptive signals when compared with objective measures